Hot Heart

Cinematic for the 360 version. Looks pretty awesome. http://www.gametrailers.com/video/exclusive-console-the-witcher/726180

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1Ak7ZMIh74 Love Aardman stuff.

http://www.eurogamer...2-demo-analysis

The Red Flags of Quackery 2.0 http://sci-ence.org/comics/2012-01-09-redflags2.jpg

Even a stopped clock...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuMitSJoW_w

No, the big problem with the whole rant is that it's Jim Sterling. That wasn't a fat joke.

They really should have 'community managers' overseeing the forums, and these should be people who understand the community. I can understand the legal ramifications but as long as you have been explicit about the age restrictions and such then I'm not sure how much could come back on you. They hold the account, is there no way to check this information otherwise? You do a fair better job for the community, and in policing it, by getting to know it. Knowyourmeme.com should be a useful site for any respectable community manager.

Well, technically..."drugs did it". I quite liked all the puzzles; I felt they were pitched perfectly. And, with the fighting, I liked the increased difficulty for the most part but, sometimes, it was just ridiculous. When you've got some armoured guy who just keeps walking at you, regardless of how much he's being shot, while you're rushing around trying to grab ammo and avoid being hit by snipers or missile dudes (or getting into a fistfight while passing other enemies) you know something's a bit off. I know UC2 had that a bit, but it was never quite this bad. As for the online, Dean, I can't speak for co-op but you're not missing much.

Some might recognise it as a cover of 'the Father Ted theme', itself an actual Divine Comedy song.

I kinda wanted to like it because it looked interesting (the environments and weapons were cool), but nothing really grabbed me. I think the biggest problem was that combat was not as 'responsive' as it boasted. Hell, it wasn't even that interesting in any case. Regardless of enemy or weapon choice it seemed a case of repeating the same few actions over again. Wasn't a fan of the UI stuff either. Upgrade screen confused me at first, until I saw I needed to move to the next screen for different areas (muscly person, magicky person, shooty/stabby man). Plus, I've already moaned about upgrade things before and this looked unfriendly, especially since it had skill descriptions that were just cut off so you needed to scroll down. I also found some of the spells I had unlocked were pretty useless/unnecessary. Then there was the case of "Blah blah, fate and all that, evil ones that just like killing, OK, shut up now". I did get a sense of some complexity, with the grumpy gnome from the intro cutscene revealed as some sort of traitor (saved him from a bear and then, after some big conversational leap, he admitted to sending someone research notes, and then I had to kill him because I failed a Persuasion roll to learn more). Overall, I just didn't find it too engaging even if it was nice to look at. Might interest younger people though.

In case you, or anyone else, is interested. Some lovely person has gone to the trouble of translating two of the short stories from the second collection of them (the book was written before Blood of Elves but not considered worth translating). The quality of translation appears to be pretty good too. http://chomikuj.pl/Karen582/Dokumenty/The+Sword+of+Destiny+-+Andrzej+Sapkowski+-+A+Shard+of+Ice+-English,310983009.docx

Gary Glitter is a former popstar who had been caught in possession of child pornography. I believe there were some other things with minors abroad. I'll let you figure the rest out.

http://yfrog.com/hwd1fdpj

I put it in a status update but I figured I'd get a tumblr thing up and going. Not sure of the ins and outs of one but it seems like a(n even) simpler-to-update blog. http://hor-rate-tio.tumblr.com/ Will try and update regularly.

SPOILER TAGS PLEASE!!

I apologise because I've not read all of the links but I do think critiquing has a place in game reviews. Maybe it's just because I'm sick of 'This game does a thing. Is it a GOOD game or a bad GAME? > Describe setting of game > Describe all the features and whether you like them or not > Do a conclusion.' It just seems a little dry. Obviously not all reviews are like this, but rarely do they attempt anything more. I also find there's that huge problem of trying to assess 'Is it worth the cost?', and most reviewers play games in a drastically different way to regular people. They will rush through a game to get it out of the way, plus they received it for free so couldn't really assess whether someone would pay full-price or half-price and whether it's a game best enjoyed in shorter sessions. I like to get a bit more insight. I can tell a lot more about a writer from some kind of attempt to put the game into some perspective, to try and capture the 'feeling' of playing the game. We probably know better than anybody that some of our favourite games are more than the sum of their parts. Of course, there is going to be that conflict of writing for your audience or merely 'assessing' a game. I go to Eurogamer because I like to hear something a bit more thoughtful and I go to Gametrailers to see an actual video and a bit-by-bit breakdown of a game's elements. There's room enough for both. I think it is more about finding where best matches either your tastes or mindset. It must be because he had 117 rep. The number of his favourite Spartan.

I suspected as much, but he says some ridiculous things so I can't always tell when he's kidding. 'The Boy Who Cried "Get Off My Lawn"'

Would there be confusion if you just put '99c'?

Yeah, I think the reason the translations are taking so long is that a lot of it really relies on the culture. And don't remind me of Polish women, you got me thinking of 'the one who got away'.